[dlvorg] Introducing topics - Dates for DLV 2017, age, etc. ...

In this mailing:

Org List
Moving along
Beverly's status for DLV 2017
The age issue
Where did you dine
Other possibly underserved groups
Dates for DLV 2017
Administrivia
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Org List:

This is the DLV 2017 Organizational Mailing List (dlvorg_at_geekbabe.com)
Replies to this message will be forwarded to the DLVORG list and not
the DLV-Announce or DLV-Discuss list.
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Moving along:

This week we'll introduce a few topics that we'll be covering in the
next few weeks.

One important topic is the dates for our next event, and a summary of
the "vetting" appears below.

Active volunteers who know they have any conflicts with any of the date
spans under consideration need to be sure to speak up loudly and early
in the process! This year we will be emphasizing any active volunteer
conflicts during the date selection process.
. . . . . . . . . .

As noted below, Beverly will not be with us in 2017. Annie and JoAnn
will continue to serve as Project Managers and Beverly's seat will be
kept open for the year. We do have precedent which allows those in named
positions to take a year off without jeopardizing their position.
. . . . . . . . . .

One omission from the electorate list has been reported and corrected.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Beverly's status for DLV 2017:

Beverly writes:

I hope everyone has recovered from DLV2016 and are starting planning on
a return in 2017. Unfortunately, at this time it is looking like I will
not be joining you in Las Vegas next spring. I am planning on taking a
year off to recharge and build up the old bank account. I have a new
baby as of last week... a BMW Z4. She's a beauty and taking up a lot of
my time (and money!).

I know that my absence will mean that someone(s) will need to pick up
some of the activities that I have organized the last few years. The
main ones being the opening evening event and the golf outing will need
to have someone jump in quickly to get the footwork going. I can give
you contact information at Bahama Breeze and Wildhorse GC for whomever
wishes to host those. There really isn't much work to either, just make
a phone call with date desired and attendance numbers. A followup call
in February and then the week before the activity is recommended.

Also the Flamingo room block is something that could be continued if
desired. I will point out that I ran into some major difficulty with
Caesar's Entertainment (they handle the booking for Flamingo). Even
though we filled the required number of rooms for the week we had two
nights (Thursday and Friday) where we dropped 2 rooms below our
contracted block each night and they were going to bill me for those 4
nights. After some tough negotiating and a few threats I was able to
convince them not to do that. If I had been unsuccessful I would have
been liable for $400 out of pocket. I mention this so that anyone
wanting to arrange a hotel block of rooms should be aware of the change
in how they now view 'contracted room nights'

If someone would like to continue dining out at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse
I can give you contact information for there as well.

I hope you have a great summer, fall, and winter, and a great time in
Las Vegas next spring. And let me also suggest you consider going to
Pinkfest in Chicago in October. I'm sure you will enjoy it.

I will miss seeing everyone and hope that my plans change in the future
and I once again see you in Las Vegas.

Beverly

PS: anyone want to see picture of my new baby?

Click here: http://divalas.vegas/misc/z4photo5.jpg
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The age issue:

Annie writes:

If there are any conclusions to be made from our age discussion, we do
want to work toward them early in the cycle this year.

For those who missed it, we've had observations and comments that our
average age over the past several years is increasing. We opened up the
topic for discussion on the Discussion Forum. The original thread
appears on line here:

http://www.geekbabe.com/dlv/mydlv/mainforum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3448

The two very specific questions I wanted to have answered were:

1. Is there a need or desire to attract more younger attendees to DLV?

2. How can we adjust things to better serve those of younger ages?

I would add another question for members of the ORG group here:

3. Is growth (as in a pursuit of more attendees, of any age, to increase
the headcount from where it's been over the past 10 years or so) a
desire that we should act upon?

I would invite anyone here on the ORG list to weigh in on those
questions, whether or not you already responded in the Discussion Forum.

In response to those questions asked on line, we did get a few very
meaningful answers, but unfortunately we got quite a bit of noise and
digression.

What I am hearing in response to question 1 above is that there does not
appear to be a significant desire to focus, specifically, on attracting
more younger attendees. I'm hearing the desire for age to be a neutral
factor when planning our event. If you disagree with this, now is the
time to say so.

As to question 2, it appears to be close to moot.

What I'm also hearing is that there does appear to be a significant
desire to NOT move our event in the sexually-oriented direction in order
to attract more younger attendees or attendees of any age or background.
. . . . .

One digression of the discussion included such things as the need to do
some kind of a "bar rescue" on our event to steer it off of the spiral
trajectory around the drain, and remarks that unless we do something to
attract younger folks, our event is on some kind of death watch.

I disagree that we are in need of any kind of a major overhaul in order
to keep our event viable.

I want to see our event (continue to) be available and welcoming to all,
regardless of age and regardless of position on the TG spectrum.

Any further or dissenting comments on age or related topics?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Where did you dine:

This question was raised in the Discussion Forum, but was unfortunately
buried in the noise and got only a few meaningful responses.

During this year's event, or during any recent DLV, where did you dine
when you were not dining at a DLV activity?

Also, did you dine solo? With other DLVers? With others who were not
part of DLV? Etc.

I and I think two others gave meaningful answers, but the members of the
Silent Majority were indeed silent on this question.

Please take a minute, hit REPLY, and simply rattle off the names of
places you dined when in LV and not with the DLV group. Thanks.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Other possibly underserved groups:

Annie writes:

One spinoff of the age discussion included the mention of some other
subgroups of our attendees which may (also) be underserved. As
mentioned, these are:

1. Overseas and international attendees.

2. Significant others.

My questions to the group here are, do we need to be making any special
efforts to better serve either of the above groups, or any other
subgroup which may be underserved?

Both of the above mentioned groups are well-represented here.

I know that we have a few international and overseas people who have
been active volunteers recently and in the past. Now is the time to
speak up if you have any input along this line.

As far as SOs are concerned, SOs have been with us since the very early
days of our program and a number of SOs have been and currently are
active volunteers.

We've had special SO activities in the past with mixed results. It is my
observation that with our event, most SOs prefer to participate just as
their partners do, as opposed to hanging out with other SOs on their
own. If you believe this observation is incorrect, please say so.

As we've noted before, our SO contingent is very diverse, with male SOs,
TG-TG couples, etc.

Do we have a need for more SO-specific activities, and/or do we have a
need to provide some other kind of recognition to the SOs amongst us?

Comments, please. :)
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Dates for DLV 2017:

Annie writes:

An overview has been made of all weeks between mid March and mid May in
2017, looking at things such as high room rates in Las Vegas, higher
than average travel expenses, the "usual suspect" conflicts, etc.

The good news is that we have quite a few weeks to choose from this
coming year which are free of major issues. Here is a summary of the
major issues in this timespan:

Sunday, April 16 is Easter. Religious and family conflicts. Holy Week
begins Sunday, Apr 9. Passover 2017 begins in the evening of Monday,
April 10 and ends in the evening of Tuesday, April 18.

Mothers Day is Sunday, May 14. Our Standing Rules prohibit us from doing
DLV on Mothers Day or the preceding Friday and Saturday.

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show runs April 22 - 27
and is the only event scheduled in this range which appears to have any
significant effect on room rates.

Those are the major conflicts this year.
. . . . . . . . . .

Now, for hotel rates, a quick check on the Flamingo web site shows the
following rates (subject to change frequently, of course) for ROTH rooms
over the following weeks (six nights, check-in Sunday, check-out
Saturday):

Sun, Mar 19: $79 $79 $79 $85 $85 $175 ($582)
Sun, Mar 26: $69 $69 $69 $69 $69 $179 ($524)
Sun, Apr 02: $75 $75 $75 $75 $75 $165 ($540)
Sun, Apr 09: $50 $50 $50 $50 $50 $159 ($409)
Sun, Apr 16: $40 $40 $40 $45 $55 $129 ($349)
Sun, Apr 23: $150 $150 $150 $130 $70 ($650)
Sun, Apr 30: $60 $60 $95 $95 $95 $199 ($604)
Sun, May 07: $65 $55 $55 $60 $60 $165 ($460)
Sun, May 14: $50 $55 $55 $55 $60 $189 ($464)
Sun, May 21: $109 $79 $69 $50 $40 $139 ($486)

Ranking the weeks from lowest total room cost to highest, we get:

Week beginning Sun, Apr 16: ($349) (Easter)
Week beginning Sun, Apr 09: ($409) (Holy Week, Passover)
Week beginning Sun, May 07: ($460) (12, 13 off limits)
Week beginning Sun, May 14: ($464) (Mothers Day)
Week beginning Sun, May 21: ($486)
Week beginning Sun, Mar 26: ($524)
Week beginning Sun, Apr 02: ($540)
Week beginning Sun, Mar 19: ($582)
Week beginning Sun, Apr 30: ($604)
Week beginning Sun, Apr 23: ($650) (NAB)
. . . . . . . . . .

This gives us the following list of weeks, with conflicts and total room
prices:

Week of Sun, Mar 19: No significant conflicts ($582)
Week of Sun, Mar 26: No significant conflicts ($524)
Week of Sun, Apr 02: No significant conflicts ($540)
Week of Sun, Apr 09: Holy Week, Passover ($409)
Week of Sun, Apr 16: Easter Apr. 16 ($349)
Week of Sun, Apr 23: NAB Convention ($650)
Week of Sun, Apr 30: No significant conflicts ($604)
Week of Sun, May 07: Fri, May 13 off limits ($460)
Week of Sun, May 14: Mothers Day May 14 ($464)
Week of Sun, May 21: No significant conflicts ($486)
. . . . .

This means that we have five weeks with no significant conflicts, all
which allow us to do the Sunday-Friday event which has worked well in
recent years. These weeks are:

Week of Sun, Mar 19: No significant conflicts ($582)
Week of Sun, Mar 26: No significant conflicts ($524)
Week of Sun, Apr 02: No significant conflicts ($540)
Week of Sun, Apr 30: No significant conflicts ($604)
Week of Sun, May 21: No significant conflicts ($486)

The floor is now open for discussion of the dates for DLV 2017.
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Administrivia:

This is the Diva Las Vegas 2017 organizational list.

One address for all items regarding this list, additions, removals,
changes, submissions, questions, etc.:

dlvorg_at_divalas.vegas <--- NOTE: New address, all lower case

Diva Las Vegas 2017
Dates announced autumn of 2016
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

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Received on Wed Jul 20 2016 - 10:57:27 CDT